Shinty – the Highland stick-and-ball game that inspired modern-day ice hockey – owes its first ever match report to a woman. From preview through live commentary to post-match analysis and celebration, Màiri Mhòr nan Òran, big Mary MacPherson of the songs, was the ultimate fan. She was the songwriting champion of the Gaels in Glasgow and unashamedly an admirer of the ‘young men’, as well as a major protagonist in the campaign against the Highland Clearances. As shinty guru Hugh Dan MacLennan says, Màiri “would surely have edited a nineteenth century fanzine”.

The game took place at Queen’s Park in the southside of Glasgow - a big place from my own childhood, incidentally – thirty-a-side, one team in kilts and the other in knickerbockers, and the result was a revenge win from the previous year for the Glasgow Gaels against their Greenock compatriots.

The night before, Màiri wrote home to Skye: “Were I as wealthy as I am poor I would give a pound sterling to have you where I am tonight, in the Highlander's Great Hall in Glasgow; my sleeves rolled up to my shoulders, blinded with perspiration as I prepare and bake bannocks for the Hogmany lads; the President of the place is seated surrounded by three score shinty sticks, getting them ready for tomorrow”.